Citation

Friedrich M. Evol. Psychol. 2009; 7(4): 581-584.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, The Author(s), Publisher Ian Pitchford and Robert M. Young)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Reviews the book, "Comeuppance: costly signaling, altruistic punishment, and other biological components of fiction" by William Flesch (2008). The core objective of this book is to "attempt to use evolutionary psychology to account for the surprising fact that humans can become so emotionally absorbed in stories we know to be fictions". While exceptionally long, it is only one of many superbly rendered and referenced book. The shortcomings of evolutionary attempts on fiction notwithstanding, Flesch fell in love with evolutionary biology's insights and its implications for understanding the experience of narratives. This book provides a new entry point for understanding a defining element of human culture and its evolutionary underpinnings. Flesch focuses his discussion on the literature of the European heritage. The more universal claims of his conclusions are therefore testable. Comparative analyses of other streams of narrative represent an obvious step in this direction and promise further insights, perhaps also in ethnographic nuances of social signaling. The reader will find that Comeuppance changes the way we look at books, plays and gossip, and reviewers will come to discover that the satisfaction of their business derives from the execution of volunteered affect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)